Holding History Podcast

In this episode, we speak with acclaimed essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn about the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and the human imagination. Meghan is the author of God Human Animal Machine  and the essay collection Interior States , which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. She writes essays and criticism for Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, WIRED, The New York Review of Books, n...

In this episode, we reunited with Holding History alum and commonplace book enthusiast Ethan Kay to talk about how to leverage AI for personal knowledge management (PKM) systems. Ethan is currently a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI where he focuses on AI-native search and answer experiences in ChatGPT.  The conversation winds between how different technologies augment and create our personal a...

In this first episode of our third season, we talk to software engineers and old-book-enthusiasts Ben Brumfield and Sara Carlstead Brumfield, the power-couple duo who founded From the Page , a crowdsourcing platform for archives and libraries where volunteers transcribe, index, and describe historic documents. We spoke with them about the idiosyncrasies of working with archival documents, the tech...

For this episode, we were joined by University of Hawai'i at Manoa Associate Professor Christina Gerhardt . Christina stopped by to discuss her latest project, a multimedia atlas titled Sea Change, which was recently named one of the Best Science Books of 2023 by New Scientist .   A transcript of this episode can be accessed here .   ⇹ Wherever you find the Holding History Podcast , please like, s...

This episode features a conversation with New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini . We spent time with Jennifer discussing her newly released novel, Canary Girls , her research process, and how historical fiction can fill in historical gaps.  A transcript of this episode can be accessed here .  ⇹ Wherever you find the Holding History Podcast , please like, subscribe, and provide feed...

This episode features a conversation with Bruce Holsinger , Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Virginia Department of English. In addition to his academic writing, Bruce is an award-winning fiction writer. We talk with him about his latest novel, The Displacements . We talk with Bruce about how his fiction writing asks questions that overlap with his academic writing (see his la...

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Gregory Mackie from the University of British Columbia.  We arranged to speak with Greg in light of UBC’s recent acquisition of a First Folio , a purchase that Greg engineered. We learned all about the process of how one gets such a book, where the money comes from, and what happens when it actually arrives. But with Greg, we also learned that a Shakes...

This episode features a conversation with Fenella France , Chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division at the Library of Congress . Fenella works at the forefront of the field of archival preservation.  Our discussion begins with specifics about her recent projects and the lab where Fenella operates but moves toward global questions of project approach, archival organization, destructi...

This episode features a conversation with Curt Meine , conservation biologist, environmental historian, writer, and Senior Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  From Curt’s Driftless Area farmhouse, the HH Pod crew learns about the Aldo Leopold Archive but quickly moves to a broader discussion about biography, environment, and the possibility of land-as-archive. This episod...

This episode features a conversation with Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Dasha Kelly Hamilton . Dasha is a poet, performance artist, and creative change agent.  Dasha welcomes Sarah and Josh to the world of spoken word poetry, talking in-depth about the logistics, ethics, and challenges of performing spoken word, teaching poetry, and organizing shared community experiences. This episode’s Bookish Word,...

In this episode, we talk with Suzanne Akbari , author, and professor of medieval studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.  With Suzanne, we get into the personal archive. The conversation moves between personal practices (how we arrange our shelves) and historical practices (how have centuries before maintained private collections). Through this a paradox arises, how c...

This episode features a conversation with Damion Thomas , Curator of Sports for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Damion guides our hosts Sarah Marty and Joshua Calhoun through the archives of the NMAAHC Sports Gallery and into a sprawling conversation about the relationship between sports and culture, and the heavy responsibility of the curator. This episode...

Our first episode features a conversation with Anne Strainchamps, host and co-founder of Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Peabody Award-winning public radio interview show heard on more than 200 public radio stations across the United States.  This episode’s Bookish Word, ogham, was created by UW-Madison graduate students Megan Fox and Rhett Blankenship.  To learn more ab...

An excerpt from our conversation with Anne Strainchamps.